Information items are often offered for sale, for example on a web site, during a designated period of time. The item may be offered for sale in an auction-format or may be offered for sale in a fixed-price-format. On many web sites, a large number of items remain unsold after the designated period of time. Some web-based platforms also enable items to remain offered for sale for an indefinite (or undefined) period of time. Again, large numbers of items often remain unsold after a period of time that may be unacceptably long to a seller. The reasons the items may remain are numerous: the seller may have listed the item with a high starting price or reserve price in an auction system; the item may not be a popular item; the item did not show up high enough in searches; the item was listed in the wrong category; or potential buyers were simply unavailable. Buyers may be unavailable during a short designated duration. Further, some buyers become disillusioned after being outbid several times by more expert bidders in the auction-format listings.
When the item does not sell within the designated period of time, the seller may or may not relist the item for another designated period of time. Relisting the item may cost the seller, and may discourage the seller from relisting.
In auction systems, in an attempt to address the above problem, sellers may be encouraged to start the listings at a very low price, for example $0.01. However, most sellers are reluctant to start at such a low price, as their product may sell for $0.01. The duration of auctions may also be increased so that as more buyers become available, the listing receives bids and finally gets sold. However, long auction durations are unpopular with buyers because that means the buyers have to wait longer to receive the items, and most bidding activity may often occur during the closing hours of an auction anyway.
Sellers, buyers, and operators of the web site may each benefit when the number of successful transactions is maximized.